Let me just make one thing clear before I begin: what happened here was entirely my fault.

For reasons that entirely escape me, at the weekend I found myself at Ashton Gate, watching Barnsley lose 2-0 to Bristol City, while amassing no shots on goal and no shots on target.

At a certain point during the game, I exhaled heavily and said, “F**k this s**t.”

At this point, a middle aged man turned around and became angry with me, saying that my language was out of order.

What I had failed to notice was that the person sitting next to him was a boy of about 12 or 13. To my eye, from the rear, he looked like a young lady, not a kid.

Immediately, I apologised.

To the boy’s right was the boy’s grandfather, who became very angry indeed.

“I’m gonna report you to a steward and get you thrown out,” he said. It wasn’t just that he said this, but the manner in which he did so.

While my “F**k this s**t” was a sigh of tired exasperation, his response was that of a very intolerant person.

Now, at this game, as with all the games I attend, I was with my mum. My mum is 63 years old, stands at four feet 10 inches tall, buys The Big Issue every week from the same man in Barnsley and votes Labour, the party for whom Jesus would vote if Jesus actually existed.

But one thing about mum is this: she does have a temper.

It’s rare that this temper flares into life, but here it did.

“You speak to us like that again and I’ll put you through that f**king dugout,” she told our complainant.

Funnily enough, little was heard from him for the rest of the game.

But this got me thinking. At the moment, “foul and abusive language” at football grounds is a pressing issue.

But it is assumed that the “f word” is the same kind of abusive term as the “n word.”

It is not, an only an idiot would think that it were.

So how about a little perspective?

Tottenham Hotspur fans singing how they “don’t give a f**k if [Sol Campbell] is hanging from a tree” – cos that’s a nice image, a black man hanging from a tree – and who is “a Judas c**t with HIV,” is unacceptable.

Chelsea fans making hissing noises at Spurs fans in reference to those who died at the Auschwitz camp is unacceptable.

Those same fans refusing to acknowledge the anniversary of the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans crushed to death at Hillsborough – an event that could so easily have happened to them – is unacceptable.

(It is also rendered pathetic when one remembers just how teary eyed Blues fans became when the philandering multi-millionaire Matthew Harding died in 1996, cheering as a pint of Guinness was placed on the pitch.)

But that kind of thing is one thing, the occasional “f bomb” quite another.

I’m not talking about Tourette’s. I’m not talking about violent language that threatens the safety of other spectators. And I’m not talking about songs that if sung on the street would lead to the cheerleader ending up in court.

What I’m talking about is an exasperated 41 year old saying “f**k this s**t” because come the end of this season I am sick of watching Barnsley football club.

Swearing is a part of football. Deal with it.

Violent and aggressive language is not. Deal with that too.

And here’s something else – in the school playground, 12 year old swear like trainee marines. And the fact that any parent doesn’t know this says more about them than it does about their child.

Had I realised that sitting in front of me at Ashton Gate was a 12 or 13 year old boy, I would not have said what I said. And for that, I am sorry.

But it is not the end of the world. And kids cannot be wrapped in cotton wool forever against words that really do no harm at all.

And for the old fella who, without swearing, was the most aggressive person in our exchange, I have only one thing to say.